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Syrian Arab Republic

DARA'A, Syrian Arab Republic - With the crisis in Syria soon to enter its ninth year, the people of Dara'a Governorate face especially harrowing conditions, with hostilities killing civilians as recently as July. Dara'a residents continue to require life-saving aid, including the full spectrum of health assistance.

Women and girls make up nearly half of the 258 million people worldwide who have crossed international borders to escape danger or pursue opportunity. Amidst unprecedented levels of forced displacement – with 68.5 million people driven from their homes by the end of 2017 – about half of refugees, too, are women and girls.

Refugee women and girls face extraordinary hardships. They endure grave risks and often brutal violence, and many are thrust into poverty. But they can also face another, more intimate, hardship, one that is seldom discussed - the effects of exile on their sexual and reproductive health.

DAMASCUS, Syria - Ruqayya was pregnant when she fled the embattled city of Deir ez-Zor, in north-eastern Syria, with her husband and two young children. The family took refuge in Al-Areesheh camp, in Al-Hasakah Governorate - but Ruqayya's ordeal was not yet over.

DAMASCUS, Syria - Fatima and Rasha welcomed new children into the world on the same day - an experience that would be completely unremarkable if not for their circumstances. Both women are living in uncertainty after fleeing the conflict in northern Syria, part of a wave of displacements that continues to grow.

MADRID - The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) today welcomed a €700,000 contribution from the Government of Spain to support the health and nutritional status of pregnant and breastfeeding women in warn-torn Syria. WFP will use the Spanish contribution to improve women's access to fresh food items in order to improve their diet.

NABATIEH, Lebanon - In late 2013, Haneen, now 14, fled Syria with her parents and 10 siblings. As her family made its way to the Turkish border, her father sustained injuries that left him paralyzed. Fearing he could no longer feed his 11 children or protect his daughters, he married Haneen, then 13, off to a middle-aged Turkish man.